4 ms·

Nothing saddens me more than a developer who can't provide an engaging 30 secs summary of the achievements from the previous day. IMO, it only displays either a

by zqna 5y ago

Nothing saddens me more than a developer who can't provide an engaging 30 secs summary of the achievements from the previous day. IMO, it only displays either a lack of intelect, or disinterest in being part of that team.

dtx1 5y ago
or social anxiety, or they haven't learned that skill or they have been stuck on an issue with no progress or they've learned management makes their life harder because they don't accept the level of progress or ... Have some empathy bro edit downvotes for empathy :) HN at it´s best!
- random_kris 5y ago
  Like you can explain what is making you stuck ?
  - ergocoder 5y ago
    No you can't. It is really too hard to do. Have some empathy bro.
    - nsonha 5y ago
      Just say you are stuck and you are unable to explain, someone then can help you with understanding what's going on. Part of being a professional is to admit it when you don know, so people can help, or not giving you hard work/close deadlines. It's really simple, whatever it is, just say it.
      - random_kris 5y ago
        Exactly this
    - random_kris 5y ago
      We are in this to make money for business not in a self help place. There is place for empathy in workspace, but it must be 2 way street. You also should show some empathy and understand that I need to see some progress in my team or I feel bad
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Lets say you did daily stand-up's in school. Every day every kid has to go up and loudly express in front of the whole class what score they got on yesterdays test, what other achievements they did and what goals they have for today. Do you think it would help the kids grow and thrive at school? Grades doesn't depend on what you say there are all, so it isn't like they should feel any anxiety about it, right? It feels like people who don't understand why so many developers hate daily stand-ups doesn't understand social interactions at all.
    - random_kris 5y ago
      well school is a solo effort most of the time, while working in a team is most of the time team effort... Only problem I see is if someone did nothing yesterday, then I imagine having anxiety telling to the team that.. Luckily I work in a team where saying "I was totally unproductive yesterday, today I have plans on working on so and so and so" is totally acceptable. In case you didn't have a unproductive day there is always something to tell on what you were working. If you were stuck on soemthing and debugging it for 6 hours and have nothing to show for it then tell that you spent 6 hours debugging, someone might even offer you help :D
    - nsonha 5y ago
      fantastic we should treat eveyone as school kids and run companies like schools do. I mean people even criticize schools for their ability to educate which is the one thing they do, and you are telling money making organization should learn from them? Learn what? Why does working have to be exactly like social interactions? Btw what definition are you using? Social interaction in a party? Do pilots in the cockpit wilfully not communicate statuses because they hate it and just want to be chill? When will you graduate from school? I wanna send some flower.
- anaganisk 5y ago
  If he is a solo developer sure, if he is part of a team. Social skill is important, without communication we might end up in paradoxes.
- nsonha 5y ago
  When you interview for the job please state that your social anxiety, or the tendency of using that as an excuse, can get in the way of team communication.
- pizza234 5y ago
  The following two: > or social anxiety, or they haven't learned that skill or they have been stuck on an issue with no progress > or they've learned management makes their life harder are radically different problems; the former two belong to the developer, the latter to the manager. Actually, standup is the best opportunity to communicate that there is a problem (a dev stuck with an issue) and find out how that can be better approached/solved.
- nsonha 5y ago
  you go to work taking on tasks that others depend on and for days don't communicate progress, and you talk about empathy. To yourself only I guess. Downvoted for lack of EQ and empathy.
nsonha 5y ago
I dont like stand-ups either but it's just me. For the team, especially in a remote and even async work context, frequent updates should be appreciated. Even if you didnt accomplish anything visible that day, for whatever reason, it's just part of being a mortal and just saying so can help normalize it as well as set a realistic expectation for the team.
Heliosmaster 5y ago
And why does that need to be synchronous? Why can't it be done with a check-in on slack / basecamp / whatever you use?
makach 5y ago
I read the article. The blogpost starts explaining that they don't do daily standup because they are using a distributed team all over the world which makes it hard to gather the team for a daily standup. To me this makes perfect sense. There are many good ways for a team to be communicating and working. Everything doesn't need to be lean. but then author carries on and the article becomes very weird: "If daily stand-ups really are so awful, why do some managers insist on them? Hard truth: it’s because they’re lazy, incompetent managers" My jaw dropped! That is a very bold statement overly generalizing and not conforming to the fact that there are many competent managers that are not lazy. The author of the article just lost a lot of credibility. If this is how you talk about your colleagues I don't want to work for you nor buy your products. "Daily stand-ups are not only a waste of time and make software development more expensive, but they demoralise developers and make them want to change jobs." How can the author generalize like that when you decided against it? What works for me might not necessarily work for you, and vice versa - to indicate otherwise strikes me as unprofessional, unsympathetic and demotivational.
- Juliate 5y ago
  There are also a lot of competent managers that are lazy (laziness can be good!) And, worse perhaps, there are a lot of incompetent managers that are NOT lazy. Now, the OP is a specific point of view. It's not unprofessional to have a clear cut point of view on some arbitrary practice. It's no unsympathetic neither demotivational: from my pov, it's rather a sign that everything may not be lost in IT if there are still people thinking differently.
  - makach 5y ago
    That is beautifully said, thank you! Thinking differently is progress and definitively what we need. I also agree with you with your statements. I used those words in the context of the article to make a point.
    - nsonha 5y ago
      > they demoralise developers and make them want to change jobs I kind of get what you mean but not because you made a good point. People are demoralised because they are lazy/unmotivated and cannot perform, once they slack off, they cannot communicate out of shame. So even though it seems that they fear the status update, the culprit is the fact that they are not motivated at work or have poor work ethic. In oder to fix this, sometimes getting a new job where you do what they like works. Another comment mentioned things like geekbot which is text-based async stand up, you might want to try that. The key thing here is recording progress so that people can coordinate, it has nothing to do with you reporting to the manager.
fhd2 5y ago
Why I downvoted: It sounds like you're talking about a non-toxic organisation. I believe the author is talking about what they've experienced in toxic organisations. I guess the problem is that everyone brings different experiences to the table, and a burned child fears fire. In the context of toxic organisations where stand ups are a top down mandated micro management tool, I find your comment about intellect and disinterest a bit unfair.

by zqna 5y ago

dtx1 5y ago

or social anxiety, or they haven't learned that skill or they have been stuck on an issue with no progress or they've learned management makes their life harder because they don't accept the level of progress or ... Have some empathy bro edit downvotes for empathy :) HN at it´s best!

random_kris 5y ago
Like you can explain what is making you stuck ?
- ergocoder 5y ago
  No you can't. It is really too hard to do. Have some empathy bro.
  - nsonha 5y ago
    Just say you are stuck and you are unable to explain, someone then can help you with understanding what's going on. Part of being a professional is to admit it when you don know, so people can help, or not giving you hard work/close deadlines. It's really simple, whatever it is, just say it.
    - random_kris 5y ago
      Exactly this
  - random_kris 5y ago
    We are in this to make money for business not in a self help place. There is place for empathy in workspace, but it must be 2 way street. You also should show some empathy and understand that I need to see some progress in my team or I feel bad
- Jensson 5y ago
  Lets say you did daily stand-up's in school. Every day every kid has to go up and loudly express in front of the whole class what score they got on yesterdays test, what other achievements they did and what goals they have for today. Do you think it would help the kids grow and thrive at school? Grades doesn't depend on what you say there are all, so it isn't like they should feel any anxiety about it, right? It feels like people who don't understand why so many developers hate daily stand-ups doesn't understand social interactions at all.
  - random_kris 5y ago
    well school is a solo effort most of the time, while working in a team is most of the time team effort... Only problem I see is if someone did nothing yesterday, then I imagine having anxiety telling to the team that.. Luckily I work in a team where saying "I was totally unproductive yesterday, today I have plans on working on so and so and so" is totally acceptable. In case you didn't have a unproductive day there is always something to tell on what you were working. If you were stuck on soemthing and debugging it for 6 hours and have nothing to show for it then tell that you spent 6 hours debugging, someone might even offer you help :D
  - nsonha 5y ago
    fantastic we should treat eveyone as school kids and run companies like schools do. I mean people even criticize schools for their ability to educate which is the one thing they do, and you are telling money making organization should learn from them? Learn what? Why does working have to be exactly like social interactions? Btw what definition are you using? Social interaction in a party? Do pilots in the cockpit wilfully not communicate statuses because they hate it and just want to be chill? When will you graduate from school? I wanna send some flower.
anaganisk 5y ago
If he is a solo developer sure, if he is part of a team. Social skill is important, without communication we might end up in paradoxes.
nsonha 5y ago
When you interview for the job please state that your social anxiety, or the tendency of using that as an excuse, can get in the way of team communication.
pizza234 5y ago
The following two: > or social anxiety, or they haven't learned that skill or they have been stuck on an issue with no progress > or they've learned management makes their life harder are radically different problems; the former two belong to the developer, the latter to the manager. Actually, standup is the best opportunity to communicate that there is a problem (a dev stuck with an issue) and find out how that can be better approached/solved.
nsonha 5y ago
you go to work taking on tasks that others depend on and for days don't communicate progress, and you talk about empathy. To yourself only I guess. Downvoted for lack of EQ and empathy.

nsonha 5y ago

I dont like stand-ups either but it's just me. For the team, especially in a remote and even async work context, frequent updates should be appreciated. Even if you didnt accomplish anything visible that day, for whatever reason, it's just part of being a mortal and just saying so can help normalize it as well as set a realistic expectation for the team.

Heliosmaster 5y ago

And why does that need to be synchronous? Why can't it be done with a check-in on slack / basecamp / whatever you use?

makach 5y ago

I read the article. The blogpost starts explaining that they don't do daily standup because they are using a distributed team all over the world which makes it hard to gather the team for a daily standup. To me this makes perfect sense. There are many good ways for a team to be communicating and working. Everything doesn't need to be lean. but then author carries on and the article becomes very weird: "If daily stand-ups really are so awful, why do some managers insist on them? Hard truth: it’s because they’re lazy, incompetent managers" My jaw dropped! That is a very bold statement overly generalizing and not conforming to the fact that there are many competent managers that are not lazy. The author of the article just lost a lot of credibility. If this is how you talk about your colleagues I don't want to work for you nor buy your products. "Daily stand-ups are not only a waste of time and make software development more expensive, but they demoralise developers and make them want to change jobs." How can the author generalize like that when you decided against it? What works for me might not necessarily work for you, and vice versa - to indicate otherwise strikes me as unprofessional, unsympathetic and demotivational.

Juliate 5y ago
There are also a lot of competent managers that are lazy (laziness can be good!) And, worse perhaps, there are a lot of incompetent managers that are NOT lazy. Now, the OP is a specific point of view. It's not unprofessional to have a clear cut point of view on some arbitrary practice. It's no unsympathetic neither demotivational: from my pov, it's rather a sign that everything may not be lost in IT if there are still people thinking differently.
- makach 5y ago
  That is beautifully said, thank you! Thinking differently is progress and definitively what we need. I also agree with you with your statements. I used those words in the context of the article to make a point.
  - nsonha 5y ago
    > they demoralise developers and make them want to change jobs I kind of get what you mean but not because you made a good point. People are demoralised because they are lazy/unmotivated and cannot perform, once they slack off, they cannot communicate out of shame. So even though it seems that they fear the status update, the culprit is the fact that they are not motivated at work or have poor work ethic. In oder to fix this, sometimes getting a new job where you do what they like works. Another comment mentioned things like geekbot which is text-based async stand up, you might want to try that. The key thing here is recording progress so that people can coordinate, it has nothing to do with you reporting to the manager.

fhd2 5y ago

Why I downvoted: It sounds like you're talking about a non-toxic organisation. I believe the author is talking about what they've experienced in toxic organisations. I guess the problem is that everyone brings different experiences to the table, and a burned child fears fire. In the context of toxic organisations where stand ups are a top down mandated micro management tool, I find your comment about intellect and disinterest a bit unfair.